Nevada GOP loses in court again in bid to block mail ballot counting

Nevada Republicans have suffered yet another blow in their legal bid to make it harder to count mail-in ballots, according to Democratic voting rights attorney Marc Elias.

The national Republican Party, state Republican Party, and Donald Trump campaign had filed suit to try to block mail-in ballots from being counted when received after Election Day. But per Elias, "Nevada judge DENIES preliminary injunction in Trump/RNC voter suppression lawsuit targeting mail-in voting ... Big victory for our clients and the voters of Nevada."

This comes after a similar lawsuit filed in May in federal court was thrown out. The judge found that Republican officials "failed to demonstrate that the Court has standing to exercise jurisdiction over this case."

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Ever since mail-in ballot use exploded around the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, Republican officials, following the lead of former President Donald Trump, sought to curb its use, fearing it would let disproportionately Democratic voting groups cast ballots more easily.

Prior to that point, there had been no clear partisan divide in who voted in person or by mail; indeed, military voters, a long Republican-friendly group, were one of the biggest users of mail ballots.

In recent years, following several GOP losses and underperformances in elections where mail-in voting was used extensively, Trump has pivoted from his past conspiracy theories on the practice to urging his supporters to use it themselves.

Despite this fact, Republicans continue to both push litigation trying to prevent its use where possible, and leveraging national GOP fundraising to create an army of poll watchers over the country that they hope to use as a basis for filing challenges to election results that don't go their way.